1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to field of data storage sharing and more particularly to sharing data storage resources between workstations, storage, operating systems and application wherein access to the data may be provided through a virtualized storage media such that access to the data is transparent to the requester, independent of the requestors application or operating system, or hardware requirements.
2. Description of Related Art
Existing software and hardware systems have many different file formats, file and folder structures, permissions, metadata and other structures that are unique to applications, operating systems and formats. In essence, it is not uncommon for a data repository to serve a number of different workstations or other users, each running on a system having a different operating system, file structure or format management or other characteristics that make sharing of data storage resources between users and systems difficult.
It is also not unusual for a network to have a number of different storage media attached to the network. It would be optimal if each of the storage media used the same file structure, formatting and permissions, so that each storage media could be accessed by any user connected to the network. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case. Instead, a network usually includes storage media that are connected to or controlled by systems that may have different operating systems and file management systems or formats. Thus a user with access to one storage media on the network may not be able to access data stored on a different storage media because of incompatibilities between the user's system and the desired storage media.
A variety of techniques have been used to address this problem, such providing an intermediate layer between the systems, the intermediate layer include translating hardware and software for allowing sharing of the media resources. However, the configuration of such a layer is time consuming and must be done manually to ensure that the particular storage media requested is registered by the layer.
What has been needed, and heretofore unavailable, is a system and method that automatically scans storage media to build a catalog of recognized file structures, formats, permissions and metadata that is then used to create a user definition. When the user requests access to a data base, the system creates a virtualized workspace that provides access to the data in a manner that is transparent to the user. The present invention satisfies these, and other needs.